Thursday, December 8, 2005

STUNNING BREAK IN GLORIAGATE CONTROVERSY

THE MISTRESS of Technical Sergeant Vidal Doble of the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) is testifying before the Senate Committee of Senator RODOLFO BIAZON about a WIRE TAPPING OPERATION undertaken on VIRGILIO O. GARCILLANO and PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO during the 2004 election season. Senators FRANKLIN M. DRILON and ALFREDO LIM are joining in the questioning of young MS. MARIETA SANTOS, who may be to GLORIAGATE what CLARISSA OCAMPO was to the overthrow of JOSEPH ESTRADA.

(1300 SARGEANT TRIPLE?) As Mayet tells it, she is a second mistress of the mis-named Sgt. VIDAL DOBLE, and that she was with him and the mysterious former NBI Deputy Director SAMMY ONG last June during that even more mystifying incident at the San Carlos Seminary along the famous EDSA in Guadalupe. She reveals how ludicrous it was to think that Sgt. Doble was being held there against his will, as the authorities made it appear in order to justify taking Sgt. Doble into custody before he could reveal the awful secret of the Garci tapes. Although she was once removed from the actual recording of conversations between GMA and Garci, she relates how Doble and his team-mates at ISAFP laughed about their assignment to "DO GMA and Garci," with their specialized equipment, "upon orders from above." She describes a "Blue Room" and several other secret surveillance and wire tapping facilities used by Doble and other active military service personnel of the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP). She relates how her live-in partner Vidal or "Jeff" Doble took recordings that became known in the Public Domain as the Garci Tapes from ISAFP's raw intel storage and gave it to an Atty. LITO SANTIAGO who in turn gave them to Atty SAMMY ONG. Three affidavits form Santiago, Ong and BISHOP TEODORO BACANI attesting to all these circumstances witnessed by Mayet Santos have been submitted to the Senate Committee. If proven, as I've said before, such illegal wiretapping activities are tantamount to high treason and ought to be punished as such for prostituting the Military to selfish political purposes. There will surely be a regime change around here if it is next proven that that "higher up" was the Palace's occupant. NEWSBREAK fleshes out the all important question of WHO DID THE WIRETAPPING? some more in its Cover Story today.

(1500) THE SENATE ROCKS: I am definitely against a UNICAMERAL Legislature now. I've not seen as good a conviction of a liar by his own self-contradictory words and signed statements as that Judge Moner got today. And it is the first time in a long time to have everyone in one of these legislative investigations have a couple of good simple laughs. As when Senator Biazon was asking Mayet how it felt like when the real MRS. DOBLE was dragged all the way from Mindanao by the Palace Defensor Brigade to set up that fake "rescue" of Sgt. Doble at the San Carlos Seminary. Since she had arrived there with Sgt Doble and Sammy Ong, Mayet could testify credibly to the fact that the unarmed nuns and priests would've had no way of "kidnapping" and "illegally detaining" the Air Force Tactical Sergeant, who was armed with his service .45! All three of the important names mentioned this morning by Mayet will be appearing before the Senate in due time to affirm and explain their sworn affidavits, including Sammy Ong and the person who gave him the tape from Doble, Atty. Lito Santiago. There is also Catholic Bishop Teodoro Bacani, whose Seminary San Carlos is, and who was there throughout the police seige and "rescue" of Sgt. Doble. His should make for some very interesting testimony Human insight from Mayet, is that in text messages to her from Sgt. Doble (who is officially incommunicado within his ISAFP unit), he expresses twinges of conscience and wishes he could be free of it all by just telling the whole truth now. The truth of the San Carlos Seminary incident also includes this revelation, long suspected to be true: that it was the legal wife and children of TSgt Vidal Doble who were being "held hostage" by unknown authorities in order to force him to come out of the Seminary and be put into the omerta of his unit, along with his family. His exact whereabouts are in fact unknown as the authorities won't say where he is being kept or why. Just a feeble ".eck eck...national security...eck eck.."

ALL ROADS LEAD TO AUTOMATION: Senator Rodolfo Biazon has opened up a very substantive topic with Chairman Ben Abalos of the Comelec, (whose avuncular personality is a relief after that stiff-jawed Judge Moner). Interesting, Ben Abalos blames the Supreme Court for putting the kibosh on the Comelec's Automated Counting System in 2003, suspicously just months before the 2004 election season. When all that happened last year, I remember thinking that Abalos and the Comelec was indeed the victim of a deliberate torpedoing of that vast improvement over the current manual election system. In the light of Garci and Gloriagate, the impression is inescapable that the junking of the automated counting system was done because Garci wouldn't have known how to rig that system. With amazing candor, Abalos also agreed with Sen. Biazon that the CRISIS OF ILLEGITIMACY that the Presidency is undergoing is responsible for the political instability in the land. Biazon brings up the possibility of a plebiscite in 2006 and senatorial elections in 2007 in order to pose the problem of restoring the people's confidence in democracy itself. But Abalos insists the current system can be made to work. Abalos doesn't get it. It will be impossible to have another election the same way again after Garci and Gloriagate. Or as Sen. Biazon riposted, "The fact remains, we must elevate the credibiity of the election process." That really does get to the heart of all this.

The bullseye question is from Senator Biazon: "WHERE ARE T/SGT. VIDAL DOBLE & Co.? We'd like to have them come into the Senate to talk to us." Bravo! PONG BIAZON!RODOLFO BIAZON has become so Senatorial lately, many people may have forgotten he is a Soldier. He used to be addressed as General Rodolfo Biazon of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. It's wonderful to see some of our top national leaders finally stand up for the honor of our fighting forces, such as they are. If the Military has been used to advance selfish interests, that is not a thing to take lightly. The picture emerging from today's hearing is pretty ugly. It seems as if the most important of the intelligence services has no concept of security or integrity of its operations, with the girlfriends of the wiretappers freely wandering around "Blue Rooms" full of wonderful lil GIZMOS and the private conversations of the nation's leaders as accessible as a bawdy ballad in a karaoke bar. This is nuts. We must cherish our Military men and women and rescue them from the clutches of the political Mafias that run the country and dishonor their service and sacrifices. I hear T/Sgt Vidal Doble is a whiz with microelectronics and antennae. He should be helping to hunt down Dulmatin and the Bali Bombers instead of spying on Garci.

You are right. I also believe that the Davide Supreme Court will rule in favor of Garcillano. I am not a close friend so I cannot call him Garci. Pero sino ang naniniwala sa ruling nila. The people has already passed judgement on Garcillano and GMA. Yari na ang isip ng tao. And nothing can change it anymore because the Garcillano tapped phone calls confirmed what they knew happened during the elections. He dissappeared, he appeared. So what! Yari na ang isip ng tao, kaya salubungin na lang natin ang Pasko. By the way, I am glad I found your site again through Ellen.

As Hillblogger said, ““I say get it done and over with - hang the crooks starting with Garci, by their ears, their toes, their latundans, but boy, don't allow these crooks to get away with virtual murder.”

It sounds like a line from an old western movie where the vigilante mob has caught the suspect and is ready to string him up.

I prefer the line from Detective Jack Webb on the old TV “Dragnet” series, “Just the facts Mamn!”

“It’s really about the fine lines of the law. It’s about distinguishing between conclusions and events that a person has actually witnessed.

The reports are here and here. I’ve read them over and over and couldn’t find anything that says Santos was in the room when the actual wiretapping was going on. What is clear, however, is that she was merely repeating what Doble told her. In her testimony, Santos said she is certain that the President and Garcillano were the two people talking in the tapes because they were the subjects of the wiretapping operations. [ABS-CBN News]That is a conclusion, not a statement of fact. She concluded whose voices were in the tapes because she had been told that Arroyo and Garcillano were the subject of a wiretapping operation. Controversial as Santos’ statements may be, they still establish nothing useful insofar as admissible evidence goes. She is only competent to testify on what she saw and even what Doble told her. But as to the truth of the substance of Doble’s statements, her testimony is hearsay. Unless she can categorically state that she was present during the actual wiretapping. But even then, she wouldn’t really know whose voices she was hearing because she did not install the wiretaps herself.

What constitutes the “smoking gun”? Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano was on the right track yesterday when he whipped up those election returns and Certificates of Canvass (COCs) and pointed out the discrepancies in the figures. Problem was he asked the wrong person about them. Garcillano did not prepare nor sign those documents and, therefore, he was not competent to testify on the veracity of the figures contained in them. Is it so difficult to find the members of the Board of Canvassers and have them testify? Who they are is a matter of official and public record. All that these “investigators” have to do is to subpoena them. If they cannot give any valid explanations for the discrepancies, then that’s the time when we can all claim that the elections had been rigged..”

“I tell you, Congress has the resources to do all that. Why hasn’t it been done? Are some people afraid that the numbers will fall short and the allegations that Arroyo did not really win will be proved wrong? That’s the risk that has to be taken if, as the members of the opposition claim, all they really want is to get to the bottom of the truth. That’s the course of action that they should take if it is true that what they have been doing was never an attempt at power grab. Truth is, they are all afraid. No one wants to show the public how election results can be properly contested. Administration and opposition congressmen and senators do not want to conduct proper hearings that will show step-by-step how electoral fraud can be established. They do not want to empower the people that way. They do not want to provide us with the tools because they are afraid that someone somewhere might decide to use those tools against them because they all have something to hide. That’s why we are made to suffer these teleseryes that they call investigations. That’s why the members of the opposition keep drumming into our heads that all that is really needed is to establish the identities of the voices in the tapes and to have them declared admissible as evidence.”

HILLBLOGGER: Who cares about Garci? He's small fish, he's the Judas Goat, not the Master of the Slaughter House. Which is why your suggestion to hang all the crooks starting with Garci is not so trivial to do. WHO ALL are guilty of the WIRETAPPING CRIME(s) is a different question and answer wrt WHO ALL are guilty of VOTERIGGING. I believe however that one cannot begin to address the latter before substantially answering the former.

By the way, I agree about the "circus ring" -- but as to whether history will adjudge it low or high class depends on unknown eventualities.

AP--I don't think it is quite time for lawyers on this one yet, sassy or not. I think it is difficult to argue the fine points of such a thing as the admissibility into evidence of Mayet Santos' testimony since the proceedings in the Senate are SUB LEGIS not SUB JUDICE. Therefore a microscopic examination of her REPORTED statements (of which btw I have a DVD recording) is hardly worthwhile except as a straw man. Sassy competently deconstructs that body of testimony, but it is hardly worth following suit.

The significance IMHO of Mayet Santos' testimony is that it opens a viable and legitimate line of investigation into a crime that in a way is not essentially about ELECTION FRAUD but ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING. The only FACT that exists is the physical and logical reality of the Garci conversations, recorded by persons NOW IDENTIFIED and BELIEVED, at least provisionally by the Senate to have been a 14 man special operations team at the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces, under orders from party or parties STILL UNKNOWN. Answering that question and solving that mystery has NOTHING to do in my opinion with the 2004 elections, which I say was IRREVERSIBLY won by GMA because she went by Sassy's Book of Laws -- that I admit. If later on somehow, someway, without resorting primarily to the Garci tapes, she is found to have committed electoral fraud, the appropriate punishments and remedies will have to be resorted to. But believe me, this isn't really about the elections of 2004 or reversing them for me. This is about HIGH TREASON by whoever used the MILITARY for illegal partisan political purposes. I don't care who that was. They should be punished.

Mayet has convinced me and lots of other people the trail to discovering WHO that was starts with Vidal Doble. And she used to sleep with him. Gets texts of guilty conscience from him. KNOWS him. She says he operated gizmos in Blue Rooms at ISAFP. She says all the girlfriends used to show up there at least when they weren't working. Seeming to lawyer for Isafp now is unnecessary on Sassy's part because we are just BLOGGING about secrets hidden within enigmas not conducting a full blown trial. Btw, regarding the voterigging charges, the Opposition has ZILCH, NADA. The Supreme Court will close the book on Garci. But they can't on DOBLE et al

Thanks for bringing this up though AP. I shall have to consult with the Sassy Lawyer a lil more.

But Ms Marieta Santoes can only testify that she was TOLD that Doble et al did the wiretappping leading to the suspecion that Doble and others did same. Her testimony whch may seem a big break, leaves the matter inconclusive.

The press is falling for the smoke and mirrors syndrome, by making Santos access to a restricted area a big thing. It sheds no light on the subject matter.

Unless someone can tesify who KNOWS something, you have nothing.

Is PGMA going to permit any Soldirs to testify?

Do you really think that T/Sgt Doble is going to admit that he did the wiretapping?

Interesting line AP. Now I did just call it a "break" in the case because of course you are right, she is not the final proof of anything. But now the trail begins with Vidal Doble. What does he know? What do the fourteen men know? I think treated as a natinal security issue, with no reference whatever to the contents of the conversations they were recording, there is a serious criminal case to be investigated and prosecuted. Who can say what lurks in the hearts of men and women like Mayet(who I think is madly in love with Doble) and the hapless Vidal Doble.

A break in the case is a seam in the cloak. Let's keep pulling the threads, you and me, AP. Thanks

DJB,Biazon has indeed grown into his role as senator. The hearings were well structured, free from to much grandstanding (although the antics of Moner were too much to pass up without any reaction), and deliberate in the pursuit of tis objective. I think it helped that Biazon wasn't constantly wondering if the TV audience was getting bored, which I suspect many committe chairman do when the hearings are televised.

Welcome RC -- Wow you guys at ABSCBN are doing a FANTASTIC job on this whole controversy. Sometimes I wonder who understands it better, bloggerdom's Journalists or the Congressmen. hehe. Regarding the Mayet Santos break, we've been having a great discussion on her over at Ellen Tordesillas blog. Hope you guys take some time reading the comment thread over there. Coming to a Head

The upshot of it is there must be 13 other women just like Mayet that have a far better knowledge of what happened last year on the wiretapping operation than anyone else outside of the command and control structure. They are important witnesses.

The Senate would do well to dive right into the wiretapping issue because people already believe voterigging happened (it's hohum to them) but I think this angle of a treasonous violation of national security carries emotional weight as well as entertainment value with ordinary people. This ought not be ignored for its abiliity to make people CARE ABOUT the Armed Forces and realize this isn't only about the cheating that lots of people are guilty of.

I lost my faith on the Filipino soldier the day that Angie Reyes "ay tumambalelong para kay Gloria laban kay Erap." And now more so because of Doble-Kara, the two-faced soldier who is like Janus. About the proposal for a unicameral legislative body - the best argument against it are the antics of the present house of representatives. The majority of the Filipinos want to impeach but they stopped the impeachment.